The Quiet Earth

The Quiet Earth John Hobson a geneticist wakes one morning to find his watch stopped at The streets are deserted there are no signs of life or death anywhere and every clock he finds has stopped at Is H

Title: The Quiet Earth

Author: Craig Harrison

ISBN: 9780340265079

Page: 430

Format: None

John Hobson, a geneticist, wakes one morning to find his watch stopped at 6.12 The streets are deserted, there are no signs of life or death anywhere, and every clock he finds has stopped at 6.12 Is Hobson the last person left on the planet Inventive and suspenseful, The Quiet Earth is a confronting journey into the future, and a dark past This new edition of Craig HaJohn Hobson, a geneticist, wakes one morning to find his watch stopped at 6.12 The streets are deserted, there are no signs of life or death anywhere, and every clock he finds has stopped at 6.12 Is Hobson the last person left on the planet Inventive and suspenseful, The Quiet Earth is a confronting journey into the future, and a dark past This new edition of Craig Harrison s highly sought after 1981 novel, which was later made into a cult film starring Bruno Lawrence, Pete Smith and Alison Routledge, comes with an introduction by Bernard Beckett Craig Harrison was born in Leeds in 1942 He left for New Zealand in 1966 after being appointed a lecturer at Massey University There he devised a course in art history, which he taught until his retirement in 2000 His award winning play Tomorrow Will Be a Lovely Day 1974 was performed for a quarter of a century, including in the Soviet Union He is the author of five other plays, including Ground Level 1974 , which led to a television series, Joe Koro Craig s most recent book, the young adult comedy The Dumpster Saga, was a finalist in the 2008 New Zealand Post Book Awards He lives in Palmerston North textclassics Cuts to the heart of our most basic fears.llinga classic Bernard Beckett ExcellentThe inevitability of the horror has a Hitchcock quality Listener

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The Quiet Earth concerns the plight of a man who wakes up in a world where all of humanity sans himself has disappeared. How does a man survive in this world, where only the ghosts of his past and other mysterious beings seem to pass in and out of reality? What is reality when the rules no longer apply? All of this and more is explored within1.I may spoil the movie for you. I would advise you to watch the Quiet Earth movie before reading this review.2. The Quiet Earth is my favorite movie. I hav [...]

Wow! If youre like most people and saw the film first (duh! Finding this book is like pulling teeth! so of course you saw the film already) then youre probably thinking you can breeze through the book and there will be minor changes. You would be WRONG! This is almost an entirely different story altogether and this is also one case where the film is WAY better than the book. If you want the details outlined, please go to the bottom of this review for the spoilers.Note: If you want to find a copy [...]

Another reviewer called this book "criminally underrated", and I absolutely agree. This book is rich, dark, and haunting, while at the same time being completely non-atmospheric. It's Lovecraft without the monsters, or maybe Stephen King with a more nuanced plot twist. It's totally worth a read if you liked "Fight Club."The 1985 movie of the same name was only very loosely based on the book, and is entirely different in plot and tone, FYI (the movie is also worth seeing)

A genuinely unsettling thriller where a man wakes up to find himself the only person left on Earth - or is he? The ambiguous ending will have you thinking for days after you've finished the book and put it aside.

I read this book after watching the movie and they are entirely two separate entities. So don't go into this book expecting the movie plot. The Quiet Earth was anokay book. I felt that the author wrote this using varied methods of 'stream of consciousness' and it shows in its random and non-organized writing. By the time I reached the end of the book, I didn't really care what caused the event that made everyone disappear. I really didn't. I think they revealed the reason.ybe? But it was mixed i [...]

"No, I had no feeling of being watched. Perhaps I could have defended myself against that more easily. An enormous isolation and loneliness, a sensation not of being observed but of being ignored, totally abandoned, was all i could separate from the confusion and fear. And this seemed all the more insidious because even now it was recognizable, I could feel my mind shoving blindly against it's shape, a distended growth out of feelings I'd always had. But my brain still works. This is not a dream [...]

Not what I expected having seen the movie, our thinking about the typical genre. Expertly written: slow revelation of an unreliable narrator (chapter 13 was especially horrific), particularly effective use of foreshadowing, avoidance of cliches. All the while building multi dimensional characters, an unpredictable plot, cultural tension, and an ambiguous ending that merits a reread.

​The Quiet Earth - Craig HarrisonI thought I'd take a small breather from Agatha Christie and read a quick like story and this one seemed to fit that bill. I will say in my edition there is a foreword, which describes this book; and no chapters. Once I realized the foreword was not apart of the story itself, I stopped reading because I wanted a totally unbiased reading of this book. Not having chapters made it hard for me to navigate the book as I normal am able to. That was a disappointment o [...]

Quite honestly, I read this book because I saw the film derived from it years ago. And also, quite honestly, the reason the film is watched, the reason people sit through endless sequences of the protagonist doing nothing is for the climactic, apocalyptic and disturbing final scenes. I don’t feel I am betraying anything of the book at this point in revealing that you will not encounter the same sort of thing in the book, for the book is, above all else, an introspective experience, though one [...]

Actual rating: 3.5 starsI flipped back and forth on this one as I was reading it. On the one hand, it is superbly written with extremely evocative turns of phrase, and rich in prose rather than dense, so it is a pleasure to read. On the other hand, said prose is about two things. Firstly, the occurence of a freak experimental event which has apparently caused the wiping out of almost all of mankind - according to our scientist narrator who explains the science behind it quite vaguely. And second [...]

What an amazing book. I ran across this a couple of months ago at a book store, and it looked interesting so I bought it. Sure glad I did.The Quiet Earth is a first person narrative of New Zealander John Hobson. He wakes up in a motel room in and quickly discovers that there's no one else in town. Convinced that there must be other people somewhere he begins not only a search for other people but a slow descent into madness starting with (what we assume/hope) is fear of the unknown.As the novel [...]

I liked this a lot more than I was expecting to.The idea of waking up and having the world be completely empty is just terrifying to me. There is a nice slow burn as the MC realizes the gravity of the situation and tries to discover what may have caused it. There isn't a whole lot that happens for large chunks of the book, but the author's beautiful prose and the flashbacks (where we learn about our MC and who he is) keep things from getting dry.That's about all I can say without giving away the [...]

The author abuses the reader of this book by making 9/10 of the book unneeded information about what his characters are seeing, doing and thinking.l without moving the story forwards. The result is that the pacing is terribly slow, non-existent in the book.I actually found myself, after reading the first three or four chapters, just skimming page after page; but the story refused to progress. After seventeen chapters and no plot movement worth mentioning, I finally gave up the the book and quit [...]

The Quiet Earth by Craig Harrison, Introduction by Bernard Beckett "The worst thing we could ever imagine is being alone, until we imagine being with somebody else." Introduction by Bernard Beckett.John Hobson awakens in a motel room to a stopped clock, reading 6:12. Everything is silent, not only silent, but oppressively so. Nothing or no one moves. A ghost town with no ghosts or movement. At least at first (que Twilight Zone music). The narrative screams "unreliable narrator", but is he? What [...]

The story line and concept is good, but I did not enjoy the author's writing style. Sometimes less is more, unless your descriptive talent approaches that of Tolkien. This, and so many references that only "locals" would get. It was tedious to read.Not saying this is a bad book at all, just didn't work for me. That said, the ending is either extremely evil, or pure genius.

I Have no idea what to make of this book. I liked the descriptions and the science focus, but Hmm. The plot seems minimal and the main (and really only) character is unlikable. I think I was happy enough to keep reading, but the story just veered to casually into racism and I just couldn't keep going.

Excellent story, quick read. Glad I found this classic.This won't be everyone's idea of a good story lots of character introspection, i.e why did this happen to me, what could has caused this "effect", etc not a whole lot of action. Man wakes up to find he is (apparently) the last human left alive. All the others have seemingly just vanished. The ending is not what I expected.

The premise (a man waking to suddenly find all life on Earth gone) and writing are excellent. Overall, I found the book to be gripping and entertaining, but the ending felt more like a cop-out than a real ending. It took me out of the book. For its length, it's still a good read if you want to enjoy some quality writing, but can ignore where the plot goes.

This book is one of my favorite books. John Hobson, a geneticist, wakes one morning to find his watch stopped at 6:12. The streets are deserted, there are no signs of life or death anywhere, and every clock he finds has stopped: at 6:12.

Brilliant! Intriguing story, well written and with a conclusion that has the reader deciding what the whole thing was about. I love the film and now equally love the bookd both have different endings that are both shocking and jaw dropping!

Apocalyptic, yes. Perhaps too much of NZ own under content (Maori?) and geography, but that's ok. Went inside heads a bit too much, different from the movie, but most are. Left too much for the reader as an exercise.

Still unsure of this one. Interesting, but uneven. Pacing was slow, I should've seen the ending coming. Very black mirror. Would love to see parts adapted into a play. Not sure I would recommend book though.

Really good weird science fiction mystery. Everybody in New Zealand seems to have disappeared. One survivor travels around looking for others. the author drops all sorts of hints about what happened throughout the novel. You also can't tell if the narrator is crazy or not.

I don't even know. That ending was pretty fantastic. My best guess is that it's the same thing that happens to Roland at the end of The Dark Tower series, and that's why Hobson and Api felt like they knew each other.